


Clear

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 4x03, 4x03 alternate scene, AOS S4, Gen, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 01:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8267324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: "Now there's an idea.""What?""Kill her. Kill her faster."Angst/hurt/comfort, angst-with-a-happy-ending, slightly alternate version of that scene(s) from 4x03, for extra Simmons focus, leadership & feels.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I combined a desire for MaySimmons fic with a desire for just a liiittle more even of a back-and-forth between Radcliffe and Simmons, and this happened. Also contains probably-bullsh*t-science from my google adventures so sorry about that. Enjoy!

As May calmed again, the sedative burning through her veins, Simmons felt her heart clench. She stepped away from the stretcher, and covered her mouth with her hands to force herself to take a deep breath. As Radcliffe flitted around, affixing the virtual reality device to May’s head, his thrumming energy made Simmons’ stomach turn.

 _Six hours. Six hours_. Pacing, Simmons tried to calm herself. She’d done as much with less. But then, she’d been gambling with her own life. And this time there was no way out – no plane to jump out of. It was either: fix the problem, let a highly trained human tornado loose, or keep sedating May until she died.

Simmons briefed Radcliffe on the problem. Listing what she knew was something, at least, and it helped keep the immense pool of what she didn’t know from throwing her into an outright panic. She’d come to Radcliffe for a reason. He was smart, he could help. She didn’t have to do this alone.

Drawing herself tall, Simmons launched into the science. She picked through the holographic images of May’s brain and nervous system, flicked between scans, enlarged and shrunk while Radcliffe speculated out loud beside her. Fortunately, it hadn’t taken much convincing for either of them to throw out trying to figure out why May was actually in this state – at least for now – and target the state itself. Impending death tended to do that. But still, Simmons’ heart raced as she could see a distinct lack of options as to what to do next.

“Brain…therapy…” Radcliffe muttered. “Well there’s always good old electroshock, although I don’t think we want to stimulate her at this point. Perhaps a craniotomy?”

He peered at Simmons, hopeful. She continued flicking back and forth between images. Adrenaline and dopamine were way too high.

“Not a doctor,” she reminded him. “I can’t actually do brain surgery.”

She thought of Lincoln and had to dig her fingernails into the bench. That was not this. May was not him. And besides, that had been a tiny hole and some fluid collection. Not…mystery surgery.

“What if we could use the virtual reality function?” Simmons posited instead. “If we trick May into seeing something calming…maybe she’d respond accordingly.”

“We can’t be sure what she’d make of it right now,” Radcliffe warned.

Simmons pursed her lips. Even the most benign things – a tree, a chair – could be transformed by the mind into the stuff of nightmares under the affect of hormones and intense fear just like this. They could just as easily traumatize her out of ever being able to look at a country cottage ever again.

“What we really need to do is artificially bring down her fear levels, internally!” Radcliffe decided. “Increase seratonin maybe?”

Simmons almost rolled her eyes.

“And how do you suggest we do that, hm? It’s not like epinephrine. We can’t just get a whopping great needle of happiness and shove it into her chest.”

“Can’t we?”

“Not unless you’ve got some ecstasy lying around. No?”

“Well, no, you’re right there, but I have connections. I’m sure I could track some down.”

“In four hours.”

“Sure! Why not?”

Simmons turned back toward May. She ran her finger up May’s violently trembling arm, and across her creased, clammy and sweating forehead. Regular medical anti-anxiety medications wouldn’t have a strong enough affect, not fast enough. Obtaining a drug that could achieve the levels and speed they needed might give them a chance – but it could do more harm than good. Simmons shook her head.

“It’s too risky. It could mess up her dopamine levels in ways we don’t expect, her adrenalin would react and she could over-exert herself. We might just kill her faster.”

“Now there’s an idea.”

“What?”

“Kill her. Kill her faster.”

Radcliffe gestured frantically at May’s struggling form. Simmons gaped in horror as he explained:

“Think about it. All her systems right now, right, are all wacky and panicking. She’s headed toward a heart attack. Boom. Dead. Probably unrecoverable, especially if she manages to beat herself up enough she damages her spine or brain.”

Simmons screwed up her face. The thought of May snapping her own neck like a panicked chicken made her wring her wrists, and Radcliffe’s energetic aplomb about it all was not helping.

“ _But,”_ Radcliffe continued, “if we kill her now, rather than let the panic win, we’ll be in control. We can monitor her vitals, wait for her brain activity, and then bring her back from the brink in the nick of time. Not-a-Doctor Simmons, you’ve done that before, right?”

Simmons frowned down at May. She twisted her fingers together, remembering. Daisy. Bobbi. Bakshi. The ones she’d saved. Then all those Chinese gang members that she’d just now lost. Her success rate was upsettingly even.

“I suppose…it’s better than nothing,” she murmured weakly. Radcliffe clapped his hands together.

“That’s the spirit!”

Simmons returned to the holotable, swallowing down her panic. They still had a little longer. She didn’t want to push too close to the deadline – which was hardly an exact thing anyway – but she couldn’t fight the feeling that there must be something else. It wasn’t any known disease or drug. She had to trust in that: for all she might have liked to test it herself, she didn’t have the time. That left only unknown diseases or substances. An alien virus of some sort, or the contamination of a powered person like Hive had had over Daisy…and that had only faded after critical levels of blood-loss and Lash- Andrew’s powered healing touch. Something they could not replicate, probably ever, and definitely not with less than four hours left on their vary precarious timeline. It was starting to feel like they really were asking for a miracle here.

Simmons ground her teeth together and let out a long, seething sigh. Radcliffe apparently took this as a sign.

“Are you ready?”

“Hell no, I’m not ready!” she screeched, her voice twisting with fear. “We’re about to kill May!”

“In a controlled environment,” Radcliffe reminded her, “with four PhDs looking over proceedings.”

“Yeah, and not a single MD amongst them,” Simmons muttered. Nevertheless, she stuck the syringe into the bottle of sedative and drew out enough for an overdose. She checked and double-checked for bubbles, and took another deep breath. Doubt and hesitation at this crucial moment would not do. Shaking hands, poor resolve, could be deadly. Really deadly.

“Alright, let’s do this.”

At her firm declaration, Radcliffe sobered. His manic energy was dampened somewhat; perhaps taking it seriously at last, or seeing the impact it was having on her, or perhaps just settling into the role he needed to take. He pulled up May’s vitals on the monitor and watched them closely, gesturing for Simmons to go ahead. With one more deep breath, Simmons stepped up to May’s side.

Her strained, erratic breathing Simmons calmly set aside. She murmured – to herself, to May –

“It’s okay. I’m sorry. It’s okay.”

She eased the syringe under the skin of May’s neck and pressed down. Slowly. Firmly. Focused on how her hands must not shake, her resolve must not fail. Her eyes must not be allowed to fill with tears.

When it was done, she pulled the syringe out and waited. The drone of the flatline buzzed in her ears as she watched the strain, and then the energy altogether, drain out of May’s muscles.

This was wrong. She shouldn’t be letting this happen.

 _“COULSON HELP HIM YOU HAVE TO. YOU HAVE TO.”_ Simmons took a deep breath as she remembered watching Daisy crumple to the floor as Lincoln’s ship disappeared from the radar. She remembered digging Trip up from the rubble. Helpless. Useless. She’d let it all happen.

Simmons clenched her jaw.

“Not yet,” Radcliffe insisted.

Three minutes was all it had taken for Fitz. Three minutes, and he’d fought tooth and nail to get his life back for months. Would it be like that for May too?

Simmons knew they had seven minutes, really. In absolute terms, they had seven. But she’d seen what could be done in three and it terrified her. Her fingers crept toward the defibrillator as the time ticked on. How long had it been, really? Simmons was too afraid to check. She had to give herself the full seven minutes or she’d never get through this.

 _“Not yet,”_ Radcliffe warned. And then “- okay, now, now!”

Simmons leapt into action, but no sooner had her fists finally closed around the life-saving defib panels, than the power went out. The lights. The computer. The defib unit itself.

She could have screamed.

The panic hit her like a wave. It knocked the breath from her. She dropped the panels. But immediately after came that familiar pull, equal parts stubborn and desperate. _I have to do this._ A rush of energy came to her, burning away the paralyzing fear like wildfire, fueled by memories and mantras.

 

_One breath, but there’s two of us?_

_Ward did this._  

_100 hours without water. Three weeks without food._

 

“I can do this, I can do this.” Rib cage compression was harder than she’d expected. May was at the wrong angle. She was too short for this table. Excuses, excuses. _Try harder._

 

_Why did I let her go in alone?_

_The next thing Ward does – Bobbi. Bobbi._

_You have to fix this._

 

_Don’t ever tell me there’s no way!!_

 

Coulson. Oh, Coulson. He’d put so much faith in her, and now she was failing him too. Her eyes burned with tears and she talked to herself, trying to drown out the returning panic. Her arms trembled. She should call Radcliffe in to switch out, but she couldn’t; he was busy, and he wouldn’t try as hard as she would. And maybe, in case this went wrong, she needed the blood to be on her own hands.

May would forgive her if she failed. At the very least, she’d tell her to let it go, and not to blame herself. But how could she? How could she let it go, when she had agreed to this?

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, and sucked breath in through her teeth. This wasn’t it. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t over. She couldn’t give in, she had to fight it, _May_ had to fight it.

“Fight!” she demanded. “Fight it, May! _FIGHT! THAT’S AN ORDER.”_  

She could hardly believe the life wasting away under her fingertips. Melinda May. The larger-than-life The Cavalry. The humble pilot. The secret fighter. The warrior, whom Jemma had never ceased to admire, even as she’d grown and changed from a naïve girl into the woman she now was. May had been instrumental to that. Just last week, she’d goaded Simmons into chewing her out, only to smile about it. She’d been proud. _Proud._  

Proud, apparently, of Simmons’ one victory on a burning heap of failures. This had gone on too long. She was gone. May was gone.

 _No, no, no, no…_ Simmons struggled to resist, but her body had already accepted the inevitable. Her elbows gave out. Her lungs gasped. Her knees shook.

May was _gone._  

 _“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”_ Simmons stroked May’s hair, and hung her head, finally letting the tears fall.

“Hold on…” Radcliffe murmured, disappearing from sight.

Simmons shook her head, screwing her eyes shut, in agony. May’s skin was still warm. It was all so small and slow and meaningless.

_“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”_

But then her eye was caught by the glowing green light Radcliffe carried in. He bore it with soft solemnity, like it was sacred. Simmons felt herself calm at the very sight.

“What’s that?” she wondered. She seized a tiny flicker of hope like a bug in a jar and refused to let go.

“It’s a power source,” was all she heard. It was all she needed to know. She gritted her teeth together and wrapped her hands around the defibrillation panels. The only way from here was up. The only chance they had was this.

 _No tears now, Jemma,_ she instructed herself. _Let’s make this count._


End file.
